God bless 'em all.
My father in law was a bosun's mate on an LST landing troops at Omaha Beach. He went on to the invasion of N.Africa and Sicily before his antiaircraft gun was hit with a German bomb and he was sent home. An amazing story:
his daughter took him to see "Saving Private Ryan" at the movies because 'he was there'.
He was in his mid-80's and had alzheimer's. He sat thru the first portion of the movie and in the theatre, there were many wet eyes as the landing was depicted in brutal detail.
"Barney" had no reaction..he watched without blinking an eye. His daughter turned to him and said "Dad...do you see this ? Don't you think this is terrible ?" Barney turns to her and says : "Hell if ya think that's bad, you shold'a BEEN there. This is nothin' compared to that !". I'll never forget that tidbit. Both for the ability of an alzheimer's patient to never forget what he experienced over 60 years ago, and for his analysis of the attempts of the producers of that movie to depict something that cannot be depicted artificially.
God rest his soul. There will not be another generation like those boys and girls.
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